Dropdown list missing a location name

Hello,

I had a volunteer last week say that a location name they needed for several specimens suddenly disappeared from the Location Name dropdown list. They were able to work on 6 specimens before it vanished. We tried clearing the cache for the browser but that didn’t work. People with different accounts were not able to see the location either. Any suggestions as to what could be happening?

Thanks

Hi @fergashl,

If you run a query for the locality name, are you able to see it in the results?

Best,
Mark

Hi Mark,

I can see it in the query, just not the dropdown list.

That is very strange! If the locality hasn’t been deleted, I am at a loss for what would cause it to stop showing in the query combobox preview while other localities still load. Especially since there haven’t been any updates, it is odd that the behaviour would change for something that wouldn’t seem to be that dynamic.

If you create a locality with the same name and details, does that appear in the preview? That would be my next step, but this is quite perplexing. As an immediate solution, you could create that clone and then merge with the existing to allow users to begin to link to that locality again.

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I will try that and see what it does. Thanks!

Hello, we are still having issues with things disappearing in the dropdown list and some specimens having their information change. For example, a specimen would be part of the Deer Flat collection but would not have GPS associated, and then somehow it would change so that it had random GPS coordinates. I know they were cloning a lot of data so potentially that is where the issue came from? I queried the random GPS coordinates and had them double check the specimens and they fixed the ones that were not supposed to have GPS. Then when they went to enter a new specimen the Location Name of just Deer Flat with no GPS disappeared from the list. Could cloning be somehow causing things to be deleted?

I also noticed that in the dropdown list some localities have multiple duplicates for apparently no reason.

Hi @fergashl,

Based on what you describe, it seems to me like this is more likely to be the result of changes that users are making (and perhaps unintended consequences of those changes) than a software bug, however I am wrong about many things and this could be one of them!

An easy way to check would be to use the audit log, and see if there are any operations being performed that could result in the outcomes described.

We have had many instances of duplicate localities being created, and it was the result of individuals thinking that the :plus_: icon was the correct way to add a locality to a collecting event (which, to be fair, would be plausible!), instead of linking to it through the querycombobox if the locality already exists. As locality names are not enforced to be unique by default, they can start to add up quickly.